On March 7, 1965,  approximately 600 marchers were attacked with billy clubs and tear gas as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge to begin walking 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery.  The attack was unprecedented and the marchers retreated in fear for their lives.  In the relative safety of homes and churches, they continued to organize. 

Photos of the March,  March 7, 1965. (FBI photos)

The Bishop's feelings toward the actions of the Edmundites are clear in this letter, written in the week before the March.  Superior General Galligan did not reply until after the March.

(Click for full size image)

 
Bishop Toolen continued to seethe against the involvement of the Edmundites, although the only formal action he took was to order Fr. Ouellet out of Selma in July.  

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in Washington, D.C., Aug. 6, 1965.
 
 

Today, both the Society of Saint Edmund and the SSJ maintain missions in Alabama, where work among the poor and disenfranchised continues.   

After leaving Selma, Fr. Ouellet gave a sermon entitled "The Uncomfortable Christ" at the Saint Michael's College summer session.  It serves as a fitting end to this presentation.
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The Uncomfortable Christ
By Rev. Maurice F. Ouellet, S.S.E.

 In chapter four of Ephesians, Saint Paul says, “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord exhort you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you were called … Be you, therefore, imitators of God, and walk in love as Christ also loved us and delivered himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God.”

 Living our vocation today as religious men and women does not call for new principles or unheard of feats of superhuman action, but in keeping with this time of renewal, this time of awakening to new needs within the Church and within the society in which it exists, we must become aware of a call for the revitalization of what it means for us to be imitators of Christ as we live his Mystical Life.  Saint Paul tells us that we are Christ.  And we, as Christ, living in this time and in this world must answer the particular needs of this new time and this new world.  We must feel impelled to step out of the pages of the past and to be Christ in this moment of History, in this moment of the living of Christ’s life.  And we must do so with the courage of Saint Paul who exhorts us to act in a manner worthy of our calling by delivering ourselves as offering and sacrifice. 

 We are called upon to continue the life of Christ now, not as we see fit, but as it is required by the needs of the rest of the Mystical Body – not to supply the needs of the past, but to fulfill the needs of the present.  If this be so, I must live for you now, you must live for me now, and we must live for those around us now.  We must respond to the cry that comes from the depths of the Body of Christ.  We must be relevant to the needs of that Body.  Not as it was yesterday, but now. 

Those who live in the well organized, well ordered, nourished, clean, reasonable, calm and comfortable middle class part of Christ’s Body can easily forget that the Body of Christ as it now exists is mostly disorganized, devoid of order, concerned with material needs, hungry, dirty, not motivated by reason, fermenting in agonizing uncertainty and certainly most uncomfortable.  If we have become comfortable we have somehow divorced ourselves from its agony by excluding ourselves from the majority who make it up.  Possibly the walls of institutionalism have cut off our view of the masses who lie in wait for our involvement.

 Saint Paul has told us that he felt impelled by the Charity of Christ.  This is what it means to be Christ – to be impelled by the love of those with whom we form the whole Body.  And who are these?  Listen to the voice of Michel Quoist addressing his God.

 Lord, why did You tell me to love all men?  I have tried but not I come back to you frightened.  Lord, I was so peaceful in my house.  I was sheltered from the wind, rain, and the mire.  You made me open my door just a bit and I left my door ajar.  Now I am lost, Lord.  Outside men were waiting for me.  I had not known they were so near.

 The first of them came in Lord.  But those that followed!  I had not seen those others!  And now they have come from everywhere, hungry, devouring all that I had and even me myself.  There is no room for me in my house.

 What is that you say, Lord?  “Have, no fear.”  You say, “While men were pouring into your house, I your Brother, I your Lord, slipped in with them.” 

For me, as I am sure it was for you, the life of Christ was for a long time, the well ordered life in which I grew and the well ordered people who surrounded it.  Suddenly the uncomfortable Christ was there close by; and he walked into the door left ajar.  From that day, living the life of Christ took a new dimension – living became a privilege but not so selfishly harbored that it could not be willingly given to another.  In that part of Christ’s Body called Selma, Alabama, I held the hand of the uncomfortable Christ, that of a minister trembling with fear but bursting with courage.   

I saw the face of the uncomfortable Christ, that of a boy beaten, scarred externally and internally by the fists of man’s hate.  I saw the sad eyes of the uncomfortable Christ, those of a man filled with the frustration of despair for himself and his children.  I saw the tears of the uncomfortable Christ, those of parents panicked by fear for their children.  I heard the cries of the uncomfortable Christ, those of a people jeered at, bruised, gassed, in pain.  I wiped from my cheek the blood of Christ, that of a little girl, His blood, her blood, as it poured from the side of her head cradled on my shoulder.  Here was the uncomfortable Christ.  The Christ of today as he ever was.  And certainly he exists all around us.

 Possibly those around us are not impelled to fulfill their living of Christ’s Mystical life because they do not see us impelled by the Love of Christ.  For surely, most men, particularly the youth of today, would answer to the needs of our day if they saw that they would be allowed to minister to Christ alive, now, without shackles parading as wisdom, prudence and patience, shackles which would keep today’s Christians from making the generous offering they feel impelled to make.

 Possibly more young people were impelled to imitate Christ by the actions of those persons who bore witness in the streets of Selma, Alabama, generously identified with the uncomfortable Body of Christ than one might have dreamed as even possible.  Yet youth is a time of rebellion.  Rather than squelch the rebellion, we might better enlist the rebels to join that greatest rebel of all time – Christ himself.

 We must be relevant to the needs of Christ in this our time, now.  We must now “walk in a manner worthy of our calling,” then others will imitate our lives.  Then they will be inspired to love one another as Christ loved us.

 We might consider this admonition given by Dante and so admired by the late President Kennedy, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in the time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”  Our world is a world mostly in crisis.  The life of Christ, as it is now lived today is lived in crisis by most of the members of His Body.  Only when we involve ourselves with this majority today in crisis, can our lives stand Christ-like in the light of the day.  Only then will new Apostles and Disciples feel impelled to give fully of themselves that Christ may live NOW.  For in the words of Pope John XXIII, “when men are animated by the Charity of Christ, they feel united, and the needs, sufferings, and joys of others are felt as their own.”  Now – Today!